substitute
New member
- Joined
- May 27, 2007
- Messages
- 4,601
- MBTI Type
- ENTP
Actually, I've just thought of another spin on the 'neutrality towards people' thread - how about when it comes to family? Because I've just realised that all my posts here, I'm talking about the way I am with most people generally, but it's just occurred to me that nobody really behaves with their family as they do with non-family.
I often find it quite odd, the huge disparity between the way friends see me, and family. Personally, I feel that my family barely knows me - I don't think I can think of anyone in my family who I'd really want to spend a week with on vacation. In fact, even just thinking about them visiting for a couple of hours makes me feel the stress-o-meter go through the roof, even though I can meet all kinds of other challenges in life with total calm!
They often say things to me, thinking they know me really well, and I just think dude, how can you say that? Don't you know me at all??
I also seem to find that my family (meaning parents, siblings etc) bring out the worst in me, and I find myself behaving in ways with them that I wouldn't anywhere else, and sometimes half way through I'm kinda looking at myself from the outside and thinking 'Dude, what are you saying? Why are you reacting like this? This isn't you!'
It's as if being with them instantly 'throws me back' to a 'former me' that I used to be, as if all the personal evolutions and all the work I've done on myself since I lived with them or spent any deal of time around them, disappear and I'm plunged back to the mentality I had way back years ago, as a pain in the ass teenager.
Part of me suspects that this could be because, though I've changed a hell of a lot, not only do they not realise this, but they actually haven't changed much at all. So they behave to me in the same way they always did, and I therefore react to them in the way I always used to. Even though nowadays, with other people like that, I don't react that way at all.
Do other NT's find that, like me, that the lack of attachment or the 'neutrality' they feel towards others extends to family as well? Do you find it has different effects? Does it cause you more trouble than with non-family? Do you find that the pressure to appear attached and the reproach/disgrace for not doing so are much worse? How do you deal with it?
I often find it quite odd, the huge disparity between the way friends see me, and family. Personally, I feel that my family barely knows me - I don't think I can think of anyone in my family who I'd really want to spend a week with on vacation. In fact, even just thinking about them visiting for a couple of hours makes me feel the stress-o-meter go through the roof, even though I can meet all kinds of other challenges in life with total calm!
They often say things to me, thinking they know me really well, and I just think dude, how can you say that? Don't you know me at all??
I also seem to find that my family (meaning parents, siblings etc) bring out the worst in me, and I find myself behaving in ways with them that I wouldn't anywhere else, and sometimes half way through I'm kinda looking at myself from the outside and thinking 'Dude, what are you saying? Why are you reacting like this? This isn't you!'
It's as if being with them instantly 'throws me back' to a 'former me' that I used to be, as if all the personal evolutions and all the work I've done on myself since I lived with them or spent any deal of time around them, disappear and I'm plunged back to the mentality I had way back years ago, as a pain in the ass teenager.
Part of me suspects that this could be because, though I've changed a hell of a lot, not only do they not realise this, but they actually haven't changed much at all. So they behave to me in the same way they always did, and I therefore react to them in the way I always used to. Even though nowadays, with other people like that, I don't react that way at all.
Do other NT's find that, like me, that the lack of attachment or the 'neutrality' they feel towards others extends to family as well? Do you find it has different effects? Does it cause you more trouble than with non-family? Do you find that the pressure to appear attached and the reproach/disgrace for not doing so are much worse? How do you deal with it?